New iPod Touch - “Funnest iPod Ever”

Yes, that’s Apple’s actual tagline for the new second-generation iPod Touch, announced today by Apple CEO Steve Jobs today at the “Let’s Rock” music event in San Francisco. 

Apple’s revamped iPod lineup includes a new iPod Nano with a built-in accelerometer, pretty colors, and a more ergonomic form-factor. But, Useless Productivity readers will focus on the announcement of the new iPod Touch. The new model features the same screen but several improvements, including a couple we predicted yesterday.

• Steel back
• External volume controls
• Built-in speaker
• Battery Life: 36 hours for music, 6 hours for video
• Genius playlist features as part of iPhone 2.1 firmware (available immediate as a free upgrade from v2.0 for iPod Touch owners)
• Integrated Nike+iPod support
• Lower prices
  • 8 GB - $229
  • 16 GB - $299
  • 32 GB - $399

Thanks to the external speaker and hard-button controls, the iPod Touch is much more on par with the iPhone as a gaming and personal digital assistant platform. In fact, Apple has a new TV ad for the iPod Touch and if you watch it you’d barely know this was a “music” device (see the spot, below). The 2.1 update is expected to fix a host of phone related bugs and platform and application stability issues, but is also supposed to reduce backup/sync times dramatically - an issue I’ve been struggling with myself.

Yes, no GPS and no camera is kind of a bummer. But as it is, the new iPod Touch is big leap forward.

Funnest, indeed.

Learn More:

• iPod Touch Guided Tour
• Apple iPod Lineup